Volunteer Explains Why Working in Hospice Is a 'Privilege'

— -- For years Debra Kingsbury has been working with patients at a Michigan hospice center in the hopes of adding some levity to their day. Now retired, Kingsbury said the work has been incredibly rewarding but that many friends are dubious when she tells them about where she volunteers.

"I do get a lot of questions from friends and other people, when it comes up, and I think that a lot of people have a misperception about what it may take to be a volunteer for hospice," she said. "When they hear hospice, it means you sit with people who are dying."

Kingsbury , 63, said most of her days are not exactly sitting vigil at someone's bedside.

Since 2013, Kingsbury has been volunteering at the Hospice of Michigan in Southfield, Michigan. She initially became interested in hospice work after studying how the organizations worked as a law student and talking to others who worked in hospice care.

"In talking with those people I was so overwhelmed by the gifts they brought to the people they were working with that I said to myself at some point I need to do some volunteer work with hospice -- and then life happened," she said.

Kingsbury was finally able to start volunteering towards the end of her career as an attorney in Virginia and now in her home state of Michigan. She's one of many volunteers that the Hospice of Michigan trains to help patients, who are near the end of their lives.

The Hospice of Michigan launched a volunteer drive in the hopes that others will join Kingsbury to help patients. There are different kinds of volunteer positions from companionship to positions where people can simply enjoy time with patients to vigil positions where volunteers stay with them in their final moments.

"A lot of what you do with a patient is up to you and the patient," said Kingsbury. "I color, watch TV...I played WII bowling."

"Sometimes I just sit and hold someone's hand," she said.

Kingsbury said one person in particular stood out as an exemplary reason do to hospice volunteering.

"He had 'fired' his previous volunteer because he was looking for companionship and didn’t feel a connection with the person who had gone in first so they called and asked me if I was interested," she recalled. When she met him, the patient said he used to be an opera singer.

"Piping in from the other room his daughter said, 'Don’t you listen to a thing he says,'" Kingsbury said. The daughter continued "'He was in Vietnam, he loved my mother and anything else he tells you is just a lie.' That set the tone for the absolutely wonderful relationship."

"He loved to joke," she added. "He loved to share stories."

After nearly a year of visits, Kingsbury's patient passed away.

"I also know and really believe that, in that time period that I had been visiting him, we both gained something," she said. "I am a better human being for having met him."

When asked if she ever had doubts about her work, because she knew she would lose patients she gave a flat answer of "No."

"It’s a privilege to be there at the end," she said.